Marguerite suffered intensely. Though she laughed and chatted, thoughshe was more admired, more surrounded, more FETED than any woman there,she felt like one condemned to death, living her last day upon thisearth.
Her nerves were in a state of painful tension, which had increased ahundredfold during that brief hour which she had spent in her husband'scompany, between the opera and the ball. The short ray of hope--that shemight find in this good-natured, lazy individual a valuable friend andadviser--had vanished as quickly as it had come, the moment she foundherself alone with him. The same feeling of good-humoured contempt whichone feels for an animal or a faithful servant, made her turn away witha smile from the man who should have been her moral support in thisheart-rending crisis through which she was passing: who should have beenher cool-headed adviser, when feminine sympathy and sentiment tossed herhither and thither, between her love for her brother, who was far awayand in mortal peril, and horror of the awful service which Chauvelin hadexacted from her, in exchange for Armand's safety.
There he stood, the moral support, the cool-headed adviser, surroundedby a crowd of brainless, empty-headed young fops, who were even nowrepeating from mouth to mouth, and with every sign of the keenestenjoyment, a doggerel quatrain which he had just given forth. Everywherethe absurd, silly words met her: people seemed to have little else tospeak about, even the Prince had asked her, with a little laugh, whethershe appreciated her husband's latest poetic efforts.
"All done in the tying of a cravat," Sir Percy had declared to hisclique of admirers.
"We seek him here, we seek him there, Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven?--Is he in hell? That demmed, elusive Pimpernel"
Sir Percy's BON MOT had gone the round of the brilliant reception-rooms.The Prince was enchanted. He vowed that life without Blakeney would bebut a dreary desert. Then, taking him by the arm, had led him to thecard-room, and engaged him in a long game of hazard.
Sir Percy, whose chief interest in most social gatherings seemed tocentre round the card-table, usually allowed his wife to flirt, dance,to amuse or bore herself as much as she liked. And to-night, havingdelivered himself of his BON MOT, he had left Marguerite surrounded bya crowd of admirers of all ages, all anxious and willing to help her toforget that somewhere in the spacious reception rooms, there was a long,lazy being who had been fool enough to suppose that the cleverest womanin Europe would settle down to the prosaic bonds of English matrimony.
Her still overwrought nerves, her excitement and agitation, lentbeautiful Marguerite Blakeney much additional charm: escorted by averitable bevy of men of all ages and of most nationalities, she calledforth many exclamations of admiration from everyone as she passed.
She would not allow herself any more time to think. Her early, somewhatBohemian training had made her something of a fatalist. She felt thatevents would shape themselves, that the directing of them was not in herhands. From Chauvelin she knew that she could expect no mercy. He hadset a price on Armand's head, and left it to her to pay or not, as shechose.
Later on in the evening she caught sight of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and LordAntony Dewhurst, who seemingly had just arrived. She noticed at oncethat Sir Andrew immediately made for little Suzanne de Tournay, and thatthe two young people soon managed to isolate themselves in one of thedeep embrasures of the mullioned windows, there to carry on a longconversation, which seemed very earnest and very pleasant on both sides.
Both the young men looked a little haggard and anxious, but otherwisethey were irreproachably dressed, and there was not the slightest sign,about their courtly demeanour, of the terrible catastrophe, which theymust have felt hovering round them and round their chief.
That the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel had no intention of abandoningits cause, she had gathered through little Suzanne herself, who spokeopenly of the assurance she and her mother had had that the Comte deTournay would be rescued from France by the league, within the next fewdays. Vaguely she began to wonder, as she looked at the brilliant andfashionable in the gaily-lighted ball-room, which of these worldly menround her was the mysterious "Scarlet Pimpernel," who held the threadsof such daring plots, and the fate of valuable lives in his hands.
A burning curiosity seized her to know him: although for months she hadheard of him and had accepted his anonymity, as everyone else in societyhad done; but now she longed to know--quite impersonally, quite apartfrom Armand, and oh! quite apart from Chauvelin--only for her own sake,for the sake of the enthusiastic admiration she had always bestowed onhis bravery and cunning.
He was at the ball, of course, somewhere, since Sir Andrew Ffoulkesand Lord Antony Dewhurst were here, evidently expecting to meet theirchief--and perhaps to get a fresh MOT D'ORDRE from him.
Marguerite looked round at everyone, at the aristocratic high-typedNorman faces, the squarely-built, fair-haired Saxon, the more gentle,humorous caste of the Celt, wondering which of these betrayed the power,the energy, the cunning which had imposed its will and its leadershipupon a number of high-born English gentlemen, among whom rumour assertedwas His Royal Highness himself.
Sir Andrew Ffoulkes? Surely not, with his gentle blue eyes, which werelooking so tenderly and longingly after little Suzanne, who was beingled away from the pleasant TETE-A-TETE by her stern mother. Margueritewatched him across the room, as he finally turned away with a sigh, andseemed to stand, aimless and lonely, now that Suzanne's dainty littlefigure had disappeared in the crowd.
She watched him as he strolled towards the doorway, which led to a smallboudoir beyond, then paused and leaned against the framework of it,looking still anxiously all round him.
Marguerite contrived for the moment to evade her present attentivecavalier, and she skirted the fashionable crowd, drawing nearer to thedoorway, against which Sir Andrew was leaning. Why she wished to getcloser to him, she could not have said: perhaps she was impelled by anall-powerful fatality, which so often seems to rule the destinies ofmen.
Suddenly she stopped: her very heart seemed to stand still, her eyes,large and excited, flashed for a moment towards that doorway, then asquickly were turned away again. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes was still in thesame listless position by the door, but Marguerite had distinctly seenthat Lord Hastings--a young buck, a friend of her husband's and one ofthe Prince's set--had, as he quickly brushed past him, slipped somethinginto his hand.
For one moment longer--oh! it was the merest flash--Marguerite paused:the next she had, with admirably played unconcern, resumed her walkacross the room--but this time more quickly towards that doorway whenceSir Andrew had now disappeared.
All this, from the moment that Marguerite had caught sight of Sir Andrewleaning against the doorway, until she followed him into the littleboudoir beyond, had occurred in less than a minute. Fate is usuallyswift when she deals a blow.
Now Lady Blakeney had suddenly ceased to exist. It was MargueriteSt. Just who was there only: Marguerite St. Just who had passed herchildhood, her early youth, in the protecting arms of her brotherArmand. She had forgotten everything else--her rank, her dignity, hersecret enthusiasms--everything save that Armand stood in peril ofhis life, and that there, not twenty feet away from her, in the smallboudoir which was quite deserted, in the very hands of Sir AndrewFfoulkes, might be the talisman which would save her brother's life.
Barely another thirty seconds had elapsed between the moment when LordHastings slipped the mysterious "something" into Sir Andrew's hand, andthe one when she, in her turn, reached the deserted boudoir. Sir Andrewwas standing with his back to her and close to a table upon which stooda massive silver candelabra. A slip of paper was in his hand, and he wasin the very act of perusing its contents.
Unperceived, her soft clinging robe making not the slightest sound uponthe heavy carpet, not daring to breathe until she had accomplished herpurpose, Marguerite slipped close behind him. . . . At that moment helooked round and saw her; she uttered a groan, passed her hand acrossher forehead, and murmured faintly:
&nb
sp; "The heat in the room was terrible . . . I felt so faint . . . Ah! . . ."
She tottered almost as if she would fall, and Sir Andrew, quicklyrecovering himself, and crumpling in his hand the tiny note he had beenreading, was only apparently, just in time to support her.
"You are ill, Lady Blakeney?" he asked with much concern, "Let me . . ."
"No, no, nothing--" she interrupted quickly. "A chair--quick."
She sank into a chair close to the table, and throwing back her head,closing her eyes.
"There!" she murmured, still faintly; "the giddiness is passing off.. . . Do not heed me, Sir Andrew; I assure you I already feel better."
At moments like these there is no doubt--and psychologists actuallyassert it--that there is in us a sense which has absolutely nothing todo with the other five: it is not that we see, it is not that we hearor touch, yet we seem to do all three at once. Marguerite sat there withher eyes apparently closed. Sir Andrew was immediately behind her,and on her right was the table with the five-armed candelabra upon it.Before her mental vision there was absolutely nothing but Armand's face.Armand, whose life was in the most imminent danger, and who seemed tobe looking at her from a background upon which were dimly paintedthe seething crowd of Paris, the bare walls of the Tribunal of PublicSafety, with Foucquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor, demandingArmand's life in the name of the people of France, and the luridguillotine with its stained knife waiting for another victim . . .Armand! . . .
For one moment there was dead silence in the little boudoir. Beyond,from the brilliant ball-room, the sweet notes of the gavotte, thefrou-frou of rich dresses, the talk and laughter of a large and merrycrowd, came as a strange, weird accompaniment to the drama which wasbeing enacted here. Sir Andrew had not uttered another word. Then it wasthat that extra sense became potent in Marguerite Blakeney. She couldnot see, for her two eyes were closed, she could not hear, for the noisefrom the ball-room drowned the soft rustle of that momentous scrap ofpaper; nevertheless she knew--as if she had both seen and heard--thatSir Andrew was even now holding the paper to the flame of one of thecandles.
At the exact moment that it began to catch fire, she opened her eyes,raised her hand and, with two dainty fingers, had taken the burningscrap of paper from the young man's hand. Then she blew out the flame,and held the paper to her nostril with perfect unconcern.
"How thoughtful of you, Sir Andrew," she said gaily, "surely 'twas yourgrandmother who taught you that the smell of burnt paper was a sovereignremedy against giddiness."
She sighed with satisfaction, holding the paper tightly between herjewelled fingers; that talisman which perhaps would save her brotherArmand's life. Sir Andrew was staring at her, too dazed for the momentto realize what had actually happened; he had been taken so completelyby surprise, that he seemed quite unable to grasp the fact that the slipof paper, which she held in her dainty hand, was one perhaps on whichthe life of his comrade might depend.
Marguerite burst into a long, merry peal of laughter.
"Why do you stare at me like that?" she said playfully. "I assure youI feel much better; your remedy has proved most effectual. This room ismost delightedly cool," she added, with the same perfect composure,"and the sound of the gavotte from the ball-room is fascinating andsoothing."
She was prattling on in the most unconcerned and pleasant way, whilstSir Andrew, in an agony of mind, was racking his brains as to thequickest method he could employ to get that bit of paper out of thatbeautiful woman's hand. Instinctively, vague and tumultuous thoughtsrushed through his mind: he suddenly remembered her nationality, andworst of all, recollected that horrible tale anent the Marquis de St.Cyr, which in England no one had credited, for the sake of Sir Percy, aswell as for her own.
"What? Still dreaming and staring?" she said, with a merry laugh, "youare most ungallant, Sir Andrew; and now I come to think of it, youseemed more startled than pleased when you saw me just now. I dobelieve, after all, that it was not concern for my health, nor yet aremedy taught you by your grandmother that caused you to burn this tinyscrap of paper. . . . I vow it must have been your lady love's lastcruel epistle you were trying to destroy. Now confess!" she added,playfully holding up the scrap of paper, "does this contain her finalCONGE, or a last appeal to kiss and make friends?"
"Whichever it is, Lady Blakeney," said Sir Andrew, who was graduallyrecovering his self-possession, "this little note is undoubtedly mine,and . . ." Not caring whether his action was one that would be styledill-bred towards a lady, the young man had made a bold dash for thenote; but Marguerite's thoughts flew quicker than his own; her actionsunder pressure of this intense excitement, were swifter and more sure.She was tall and strong; she took a quick step backwards and knockedover the small Sheraton table which was already top-heavy, and whichfell down with a crash, together with the massive candelabra upon it.
She gave a quick cry of alarm:
"The candles, Sir Andrew--quick!"
There was not much damage done; one or two of the candles had blownout as the candelabra fell; others had merely sent some grease upon thevaluable carpet; one had ignited the paper shade over it. Sir Andrewquickly and dexterously put out the flames and replaced the candelabraupon the table; but this had taken him a few seconds to do, and thoseseconds had been all that Marguerite needed to cast a quick glance atthe paper, and to note its contents--a dozen words in the same distortedhandwriting she had seen before, and bearing the same device--astar-shaped flower drawn in red ink.
When Sir Andrew once more looked at her, he only saw upon her face alarmat the untoward accident and relief at its happy issue; whilst the tinyand momentous note had apparently fluttered to the ground. Eagerlythe young man picked it up, and his face looked much relieved, as hisfingers closed tightly over it.
"For shame, Sir Andrew," she said, shaking her head with a playfulsigh, "making havoc in the heart of some impressionable duchess, whilstconquering the affections of my sweet little Suzanne. Well, well! I dobelieve it was Cupid himself who stood by you, and threatened the entireForeign Office with destruction by fire, just on purpose to make me droplove's message, before it had been polluted by my indiscreet eyes. Tothink that, a moment longer, and I might have known the secrets of anerring duchess."
"You will forgive me, Lady Blakeney," said Sir Andrew, now as calm asshe was herself, "if I resume the interesting occupation which you haveinterrupted?"
"By all means, Sir Andrew! How should I venture to thwart the love-godagain? Perhaps he would mete out some terrible chastisement against mypresumption. Burn your love-token, by all means!"
Sir Andrew had already twisted the paper into a long spill, and was onceagain holding it to the flame of the candle, which had remained alight.He did not notice the strange smile on the face of his fair VIS-A-VIS,so intent was he on the work of destruction; perhaps, had he doneso, the look of relief would have faded from his face. He watched thefateful note, as it curled under the flame. Soon the last fragment fellon the floor, and he placed his heel upon the ashes.
"And now, Sir Andrew," said Marguerite Blakeney, with the prettynonchalance peculiar to herself, and with the most winning of smiles,"will you venture to excite the jealousy of your fair lady by asking meto dance the minuet?"
CHAPTER XIII EITHER--OR?